CoreOS, an open source lightweight Linux-based operating system designed for massive server deployments, yesterday announced that it has secured $8 million in venture capital funding in series A round led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, with follow-on investments from existing investors Sequoia Capital and Fuel Capital.

The company plans to offer support services to clients who do not want to deal with the admin work of servers themselves. Taking the first step in this direction, the company announced CoreOS Managed Linux, a commercial version of its open source operating system, which the company describes as the 'world's first OS as a Service'.

“This is a big day for us. Not only are we announcing funding from one of the top Silicon Valley venture capital firms, we also have worked hard to deliver Managed Linux”, said Alex Polvi, founder and CEO of CoreOS today. “Businesses today can begin to think of CoreOS as an extension of their OS team, and for enterprise Linux customers this is the last migration they will ever need”.

The monthly charges for the service vary depending upon the number of servers one has. For example, the company charges $100 for managing up to 10 servers. This includes automatic updates, patches and limited support. The company also offers a premium plan that includes phone, chat and email support, as well as access to CoreUpdate, a dashboard that lets you control software updates.

Prices rise sharply as the number of servers increase. For example, 50 servers will set you back $2,100 per month and $6,600 per month for basic and premium subscription, respectively.

An interesting thing about CoreOS is that it doesn't ship with a package manager. Rather, it uses Docker to handle how applications and services are added to the system and managed on it.

Started back in August 2013, the CoreOS project definitely has a bit of momentum going for it right now. Google recently announced that the Y Combinator alum is now officially available on its Compute Engine, putting it right next to industry heavyweights like Debian, RedHat and Suse.